Devil’s Advocate

The Atlantic’s David Frum joins NTK to evaluate Trump’s first nearly 100 days. Mona plays Devil’s advocate with Frum, a Trump critic – at least for a while. Jay engages David about the French elections, and then conversation turns to the March for Science, O’Reilly, FoxNews, the Detroit Tigers, and David Selznick.

There are 10 comments.

Jay! JAY!!! For the love of god! Please stop!! (about 1h03 into the podcast)

The events of a 95 year old man’s grandmother, as tragic as they maybe – are not recent! They’re 10 – 11 Generations in the past. That is not a recent event. Children in grade school today, have grand parents who fought in or about Vietnam – NOT Bull Run.

By keeping this charade alive, you’re keeping these grievances fresh, and giving legitimacy to the nuts demanding reparations. While its important to never forget history, its equally important to forgive history. Ireland had a nasty terror war for generations before they learned that lesson. America now has a party so desperate for power, so desperate to divide the voter base – that they’ll nurture any grudge to get a voter to the polls. STOP giving it legitimacy! Learn the history and to forgive the history.

This podcast’s disgust and dislike of our new President has reached comic proportions. How appropriate they dredge up David Frum to be a guest and validate their perspective. Trump was my last choice in the Republican primaries, but I supported him in the general election. As our President, I am pleasantly surprised. He has acted as conservative as any President I have witnessed in my lifetime. Why the continual bashing? My opinions are, #1 snobbery (he appears classless and crass vs our superior temperament/intellect) and #2 ego (we trashed him, he won, and now we are embarrassed). We just experienced 8 years of truly damaging leadership. Enjoy the flawed, but far superior, next 4 years.

I agree with Mr. Frum that Trump’s motives in seeking and winning the presidency are far from pure. I think Trump wanted to poke his finger in the eyes and at the same time gain acceptance and respect of elites on the right and the especially the left who have ridiculed him. He will never get it. Obama very likely gave life to Trump’s run when he mocked Trump at that correspondents’ dinner in 2011. It is important for commentators to continue to criticize Trump when he is foolish, as is the case so often and temper that criticism with praise for the times Trump does well. I think Mona and Jay do an excellent job of this.

I loved Frum’s conspiracy theory that Trump was shutting down parts of the government so as to be able to protect his and his family’s illegal activities. Nice how this conspiracy theory was tossed out and accepted with absolutely no details or explanations. Nor did it seem that Mona or Jay was surprised or pushed back against this tripe, just accepted it an moved on. Journalism no longer needs facts anymore just a good story for character assassination and run with it. The sad part is that Alex Jones is starting to have more credibility than these guys.

I do not like Trump but the way these guys treat him is just plain disappointing.

Thanks for the podcast. This is the first background that I have heard/read regarding Brett Stephens’ decamping for the NYT. Curious, does anyone have more detail? Is it a result of James Taranto’s elevation as features editor? Personally, for years I looked forward to Stephens’ weekly piece (his pen drips vitriol). But he became unhinged over Trump and less readable. NYT readers will like half of what he writes and loathe the rest.

That’s when I had to stop listening. I did make it through Mona’s excessive minutes-long “introduction to the question” out of sheer listener tenacity, but it is clear that these two people (Mona and Frum) have much too high of an opinion of what they can contribute to a discussion. Frankly, I find them boring. Frum has been boring since the Bush administration. Mona and Jay are Jaynie and Johnnie One-Notes on Trump, week after week — how long can they stay miffed about this? Were they even this uncharitable during the early Obama administration? I don’t recall so.

I will, I suppose, tune in next time to see if they have come up with an interesting angle on current affairs. But Trump bashing is a waste of time.

Well, checking back in after about four months of abstention. Heard Mona on Andrew Klavan’s podcast — now my favorite. NTK used to be my favorite before the hosts revealed themselves as mentally unstable. I was hoping that there might have been some healing in the interim, but Mona’s performance on Klavan was deeply disappointing — despite Andrew’s courtesy, Mona gave the distinct impression that she still regretted Hillary’s loss. It is very sad that Mona and Jay still appear not to appreciate the reasons for Trump’s victory (and their role in it), and are still unable to cope in a constructive manner. It is frankly a loss for us all.